Posts from 1st December 2005

1Dec 05

The beauty of “And then I woke up” comes to every nine year old child at the same time I think. It is a combination of the following factors:
a) Some awareness of classic KidZor Lit which uses this trope (Hello Alice In No-Fun-Derland and WizovOZ)
b) Over ambition in writing a story for class (= this book writing lark looks easy)
c) Having had a dream that ends suddenly before things get good
d) Running out of time on the over ambitious story.

Thus we get classics like:

“Just then me and Steven were caught by the pirates. Steven struggled, but I got away, to look back. Just when I was going to rescue Steven with the knife I had rescued from the old pirate with the grey beard, they dragged him off to be eaten by canibles. AND THEN I WOKE UP.”

Often timed to finish with a side of paper, “And then I woke up”.

Unfortunately this is invariably seen as a cop-out ending (often as it is correctly identified as being because of b) and d) above). However tell that the Lewis Carroll, Jamie and the Magic Tourch and Mr Benn. Kidlit/TV is full of “And Then I Woke Ups”, because its instant restoration of status quo is actual very reassuring. It also allows the rest of the story to go massively off the rails, thus tempting the reader into the fantastic, and to push the limits of standard narrative.

Put it like this: it is a much, much better ending that “And then I didn’t wake up”.

Actually. I told a slight porkie below. There is one film which could be said to be in the Pink Panther canon which I have a degree of fondenss for. And that is Inspector Clouseau. A rarely seen entry into the series where Clouseau is sent to London to capture a rogue French Bomber (handily called Bomber LeBec) it is notable for bearing very little relation to the rest of the films, and for its usefulness in pub quizes. Truely Alan Arkin is the David Niven of the Pink Panther films (except David Niven is the David Niven of the Pink Panther films, though clearly what I was trying to say is that just as David Niven was James Bond in the Oscar nominated Casino Royale (as was Peter Sellers) not considered Bond canon, then Alan Arkin’s Clouseau might not be considered Pink Panther Canon – if such a ridiculous idea really existed).

Is it lame to like a song because it has Wee in the title. Of course not. Luckily, that is not the real reason why Wee Rule, well, rules. Though my description of why Wee Rules rules is partially about the idea of “ruling” in a UK slang kind of way. UK rap was still in its very nascent form, and this – along with Smiley Culture – defined (for better and worse) what we were going to get from the UK rap scene for ten years. Often it was quick snatched verses over a pop track. Or a slow, sonambulent Jazzy B stab at something credible. What We Rule does, in a minor sense, is bring it back to the playground.

You would not hear Run DMC saying that they rule. Or that they were skill. The Wee Papa Girl Rappers were clearly British, albeit leaning on dancehall roots. They were not an Althea And Donna for the late eighties though, this was clearly rap. And it managed to slip French swearing on to Top Of The Pops (and even point out it was doing it). It was a pop tune though, and probably led to more school projects where you write a rap about crossing the road. The Wee Papa Girl Rappers (one letter away from being the Twee PGR) told us they were rap, and were just a cheeky pair of South London girls (who have passed their French exams).

All this and the “Bomp-bomp-bomp-bomp” in the chorus: one of those killer stings that roots a tune in your brain for the rest of your life. The Lawrence girls may not have done much more, but were clearly paving the way for Mel & Kim and TLC (though both groups would probably have been able to traverse an unpaved road).

I can’t say I have ever really cared for the Pink Panther films, possibly due to seeing them in probably the worst order (Trail first). Whilst the law of diminishing returns was clearly embedded in the series, there are some nice gags for five year olds (Kato) and the summing up scene in A Shot In The Dark is a nice deconstruction of all country house mysteries. That said, as Blake Edwards was happy to constantly piss on his own creation I have felt rather ambivalent towards the recent remake.

Steve Martin should have learned with Bilko. To be fair, he should have been banned from ever appearing in a film again after Bilko. But this? Where is the humour value in putting someone pretending to have a silly French accent in a film with a French actor with a real French accent. It makes, like the rest of this film, no sense…

the office text-scanner was jus now caught helpfully changing the adjective “anti-scientific” into “anti-semitic”, a statement of moral equivalence that presumably reflects its hard-wired beliefs – viz that not knowing much about chemistry (or caring) is rather more disgracefully evil than we at this small arts journal grasp

So when I left you, Europe were up two games in the Weber Cup. They maintained this form through Saturday, and started the first session on Sunday at an impressive 12-10. Indeed the only part of their game that was looking shaky were the Baker Games which finished every session.

This lack of form in the Baker Games was put down tot he fact that it is a format that is rarely used in competition in Europe. However, this line seems suspect when you consider what a Baker Game is. Basically it is the whole team playing: player one plays frame one and six, player two plays two and seven. This differs somewhat to the doubles games where the players just alternate balls – thus picking up spares if the partner is k.rub. But in the end, in bowling tactics are not a major aspect, the order of bowling should not matter beyond placing your strongest bowlers in the right place (frames one and five). So the fact Europe lost every one of the Baker games was not only a mystery, but an increasing liability. Especially on Sunday when Europe’s bowling fell apart.

Europe walked in to the Barnsley Metrodome, two frames up. We walked out for tea two frames down. 13-15, the US needing only three frames to win. In the evening session, much like snooker, it just keeps going until there is a winner. And Europe lost the first frame. 13-16. Frankly, things were looking bad. So bad that I left Carsmile’s (somewhat nippy) house at 10pm. Only to receive text updates of a comeback. Indeed more than a comeback. With no Baker games left, and only singles to play out the day, Europe mopped up five in a row. We won, 18-16. White Russians all round.

In December, Blog 7 will be the blog of endings – final chapters, grand finales, fade-outs, fake-outs, and all things terminal. Why? Well, partly because it’s the last month of 2005, a year a lot of us will be happy to see the back of, and partly because at the end of December…

one of Freaky Trigger’s blogs will DIE!

Of course this wasn’t really our choice. The new European Commission Directive on blogging allows any organisation to run a total of only six blogs unlicensed, and none of us fancy a trip to Brussels*. So one of them has got to go. We thought of doing a vote, but in the end it’s a very personal decision we have to take here, so we’re going to have a look at all of them and then decide in the pub.

Popular, and Tanya’s blog, aren’t affected in this, as they’re personal blogs not team ones. So up for the chop are:

Now it’s officially really actually December we can all start listening to Christmas songs. There had been some talk of doing a flood of Christmas posts on here, but it’s been pointed out to me that I have a list of best tracks ever to finish, so I’m going to concentrate on that instead.

People wanting some festive cheer should wander over to Poptimists, which always has a few MP3s going and is running an audio advent calendar. (You might also wish to visit Poptimists’ monstrous disowned sibling Sukrat). If that’s not enough for you, or if LiveJournal brings you out in hives, then I recommend this ILM thread for all yr Wobs greed needs.

Time Machine

Featured Posts

1 Jan 2003
This article was the author’s working notes for his since published book “Adorno: A guide for the perplexed”, available from Waterstones, reputable booksellers, and Amazon Introduction, by Alex Thomson In many ways Adorno exemplifies the image problem faced by critical theory today. Adorno is not a sexy figure. He comes over in his writing as […]

8 Feb 2001
Charlemagne Palestine – Four Manifestations on Six Elements 1. Charlemagne Palestine approaches a piano like a climber approaches a mountain. He does not play the instrument so much as he lets it test him: he starts each performance like an ascent, knowing that somewhere ahead there are the limits of the piano, and also the […]

23 Apr 2000
My first encounter with the exotic was on the Magic Mill at Thorpe Park, a South-East England theme park which from appearances had originally been based around a cramped zoo or city-farm set-up. At some point in the late 70s it had seemingly panicked, though, and parked itself up in order to survive. With its […]

3 Oct 2004
In search of Squirrel – Part two (warning, contains graphic images) Some of you may remember this article I wrote some time ago about my “failure” as a vegetarian and my quest for the different. Well, I’ve done it. Squirrel had become a bit of an obsession, I’d chased up all sorts of alleys (Julian […]

2 Feb 2001
The Usual Excuses Bowery Electric’s “Freedom Fighter” is bewitching and worrying, and not just because it was made by a band I’d put down as America’s most useless. In fact the beat Bowery Electric use on “Freedom Fighter” sounds as familiar as ever, but that for once works in the song’s favour, in the same […]

29 Oct 2010
#641, 3rd February 1990 Sinead O’Connor is one of the finest song interpreters not just because she thinks hard about the material and the feelings locked in it, but because she’s so good at placing songs into a situation. A great example of this is her version of “Chiquitita”, warm and homely where ABBA’s is […]

4 Feb 2014
#757, 25th January 1997 In 1997, talking about music on the Internet means USENET, a Gormenghast of diverging and reconnecting fora whose goblin tribes gleefully rampage through each other’s chosen lairs: a thread will start on alt.music.prodigy, then careen into alt.music.spice-girls via alt.music.misc, while Discordians and trolls plot to spread it still further. Still, there […]

30 Jan 2000
I. The cod-philosophical question at the centre of pop fandom is this: is pop a genre or a state? Not all records designed to be ‘great pop’ – in the sense of being good for the feet, the heart and the bank balance – make it to the Top Forty, or anywhere near. But not […]